Nick of Time
by Destielixer
Summary: He's the reason why Sherlock's a sociopath now. Because the young boy who was once met the Doctor had his dreams crushed. The Doctor is the reason why Sherlock wanted to become a consulting detective, the only one of his kind. Now he's in trouble. Will the Doctor return in time to help him? 11th Doctor/Sherlock -ON HOLD-
1. The Doctor & I

**AN: Hey guys so this is my very first Sherlock/Doctor Who crossovers. It just hit me sometime when i was on the way home from school, watching some fanvids on Youtube. I know it might seem cliché and all but i don't know. I just needed to write it. This will be a short story maybe five chapters at the most? I don't really know. It depends :) Do read and leave me a comment guys! Thanks!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in Sherlock or Doctor Who. This story is 100% fanmade, for the fans by a fan!**

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Chapter 1: The Doctor & I

At a time when there was no one for Sherlock to call a friend, at a time when people called him names and hated him, he found a friend that came from out of this world. The man in the blue box. The funny, eccentric man in the blue box. It was pure coincidence that they met. He had come home from school that day, alone on foot as usual and he was sitting up in his room studying. His parents were away for the weekend and his older brother was at a friend's place. He was very much alone. He didn't mind it, in fact he quite liked being alone. At least there wouldn't be any fighting.

His house was at the end of the street and it was always very quiet at night. That's why when he'd heard the weird whirring-wheezing noise disrupting the silence he stood and looked out of his window. Sherlock was rather surprised to see a weird lopsided police box lying on its side in his garden. How had it gotten there? Probably fallen out of the sky. No…that would mean it was an alien. There was no such thing as aliens…Or were there?

_'Curiosity killed the cat…'_ he thought. Yet pulling on a jacket he dashed out of his room anyway. Sherlock raced down the stairs and then out the front door, his feet carried him out to where the lopsided police box was, lying on its side with smoke rising from it. This was crazy. This was absolutely amazingly insane. Cautiously he reached a hand out and touched the wooden base of the very _real _police box, he could feel the hard wood grazing his fingers when he touched it. He was definitely not dreaming.

Okay so an alien had landed in his front garden in a spaceship that looked just like a police call box…

"Hello?" he called as he knocked on the wood. He wasn't sure if he was going to get any reply.

From inside there came the sound of muffled footsteps, "Just a minute!"

His eyes widened at the very _human_ voice that replied him, surprised. Maybe aliens could speak just as humans did.

"You might want to stand back!" came the voice again.

Sherlock took a few steps back and waited. The blue door of the box opened up and out, a hand stuck out and grabbed onto the base of the box before a man heaved himself out of the box, tumbling out onto the grass before him.

"Hello!" the man said, smiling up at him from where he lay on the ground, his head near his feet, limbs awkwardly spread out at his sides.

Sherlock caught himself gawking at the sight and after recovering he replied, "Hello."

The man smiled, "It's not everyday that she crashes in someone's backyard," he said pulling himself up and brushing off the dirt from his disheveled clothes, "we just had a little accident along the way."

"She?" Sherlock asked indicating the spaceship.

"Ah yes. She. The TARDIS. She's a time travelling machine," the man explained, "and TARDIS stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space."

Sherlock nodded his head as the man rattled on and on about his time machine and then moved on to talk about fixing his TARDIS. Who ever he was he clearly didn't have any social skills, or he just really enjoyed talking.

"My name is Sherlock Holmes," Sherlock said and the man paused in mid sentence and about-turned to face him as he facepalmed.

"How can I be so stupid!" he muttered and crossed over to stand before him, taking his hand in both of his and shaking it enthusiastically –too enthusiastically– as he introduced himself, "I'm The Doctor."

Was this man never going to stop surprising him? Sherlock looked up to him, "Just The Doctor?" he asked, expecting something more.

The man nodded, "Just The Doctor."

"Okay," he said and pulled his hand out from between the Doctor's hands. He didn't exactly want to go back to doing schoolwork so he asked, "Do you need help with fixing your…TARDIS?"

"No not at the moment. But you know what? I'm hungry. Starving, actually! Do you have anything to eat?" the Doctor asked

"I can't cook much. But I can try to make something," Sherlock said as he led his new friend with a peculiar name back into his house.

He made a beeline for the kitchen and pouring a bowl of fries into the cooker he closed the lid and waited for the five minutes that it would take to cook. Sherlock wanted the Doctor to try something that he liked to make for himself when he had to stay home alone.

"Are you old enough to be using that?" the Doctor asked as he watched Sherlock shut the cover of some electrical appliance.

"Eleven is old enough to use a fryer don't you think?" Sherlock replied as he stood at the counter, watching the Doctor who picked up the eggbeater at the sink and play with it. "How old are you?" he asked now, for the Doctor seemed to have such childish mannerisms.

"Would you like to guess?"

Sherlock furrowed his brows, he was good at this, reading and analyzing people. His tattered blue shirt with the loose red tie and the suit pants made him seem a little older than his face actually looked. He studied the Doctor's face now before he came to the conclusion, "Thirty."

The Doctor laughed, it wasn't the mocking sort of laughter that the people in school gave to him. It was different.

The Doctor shook his head, he'd never seen someone give such a precise answer before. Had he been human the answer would be right, "Nope. Looking at my face yes, I might be that age but I'm not."

"Oh. Right…" Sherlock murmured he'd not taken the fact that the Doctor was not a being of this planet into consideration. Perfectly clever of him to eliminate that possibility.

"I'm a thousand years old."

A smile grew on Sherlock's lips as he heard that. His new friend was a thousand years old. It just seemed so impossible. But here he was in the living flesh. He was glad that he was the only one at home, glad that he would be the only one who would see this extraordinary man who crash-landed in his garden in a police box.

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They sat across each other at the dining table now, a table that held so many bad memories for Sherlock.

_'Well at least now I'll have one good thing to think about when I see this table,' _he thought as the Doctor complimented him on the combination of fries and vanilla ice cream.

"So what are you?" Sherlock asked as he dipped the fries into the melted vanilla ice cream, when the Doctor looked at him again he added, "Like what do you do?"

"Oh! Yes, um…regeneration gets the brain a little messed up," the Doctor said as he took some more fries, "Time Lord. I'm a Time Lord. I fly around space in the TARDIS and help people."

_'Are you here to help me?' _he wanted to ask but instead answered, "That's cool."

"What about you, Sherlock?"

"Human. I'm a human and I go to school," he murmured, "It's way more boring than you travelling around space."

The Doctor laughed, "I could take you out some time if you wanted. I just have to get her all fixed up first. It should take awhile."

Sherlock nodded. He definitely wanted the Doctor to take him away. He would rather travel all of time and space than stay here in this dingy house, with his stupid brother, uncaring parents and a load of haters in his school.

The Doctor got up from his seat now licking his fingers, "How about you give me a tour of the house? That's what you all do right? Show friends around the house?"

_'Friends…'_ Sherlock thought a smile on his lips now.

"Sure," he replied jumping off his seat and rounding the table as he took the Doctor's hand and led him around the house.

"I don't use the other rooms much," Sherlock said, leading the Doctor up the stairs now, "I much rather prefer to be alone."

He felt as the Doctor squeezed his hand in a sort of comforting gesture, almost as if to tell him that it's all right, "This here is my room," he said and opened the door at the far end of the hall.

The Doctor slipped his hand from Sherlock's as he entered the young boy's room. It was fairly tidy as boys' rooms went. A bed, a desk, some shelves, a cupboard and another door leading off to the bathroom. He did notice that unlike other people, Sherlock didn't have photographs at all. Nothing that showed that this boy had parents. He seemed to be well and alone…just like him…and that made the Doctor want to spend just a little more time with Sherlock.

"So what were you doing before I crashed here?" he asked, picking a book from the row of books on the shelf and leafing through it.

"Homework…" Sherlock muttered as he sat on the edge of the bed, watching as the Doctor looked through his collection of books.

The Doctor moved over to the desk where said homework was and taking a seat he decided to give it a try. After awhile he gave up and scribbling over the paper he stood, "How about I get the TARDIS all fixed up and then I take you on a ride?"

"Yes!" Sherlock grinned as he followed the Doctor out to the garden. To where the police box lay on it's side on the ground.

"Would you wait out here?" the Doctor asked, he didn't want to spoil the surprise for Sherlock.

"Okay. But when you're done you have to give me the full tour of the TARDIS."

"Of course. All companions get a free tour of the TARDIS," the Doctor said as he smiled and entered the TARDIS once more.

Sherlock was beginning to feel sleepy now as he waited, sitting on the bench in the garden. How long was this going to take? He could hear the Doctor tinkering away from the open door of the TARDIS. Sherlock yawned and stood to stretch. Just as he did, the Doctor popped his head back out of the TARDIS.

"She'll be done in just a moment, give me about five minutes. I just need to test her out. Why don't you go get ready?"

Sherlock smiled, he was wide-awake now. He rushed back into the house, going back up the stairs as he dashed into his room, taking his suitcase out from under the bed and dumping clothes into it. Just as he was about to go back downstairs, he heard that weird whirring-wheezing noise again. It couldn't be…he looked out the window now and saw as the blue box slowly began to disappear. So that was how the Doctor traveled. He closed his suitcase now as he raced back down the stairs and out of the house.

Five minutes. In five minutes time, the Doctor would be back to take him away. '_Away from this stupid place and all the way into outer space,_' he smiled at the thought as he settled down on the bench with his suitcase at his side, trying to keep his eyes open as he waited for the man with the blue box to return…


	2. Unsolved Mystery

Chapter 2: Unsolved Mystery

_-10 years later-_

"You have five more minutes before you hand in your papers students," came the teacher's voice from the front of the classroom.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. Five minutes as he'd learnt actually meant forever. He stood up, took his still blank paper and went to the teacher's desk. Then he tore it right before her and walked out of the classroom. He headed to his locker where he grabbed his books, stuffed them into his bag and closed the locker to see the same gang of students there to harass him again.

He sighed, "What? Do you have a problem with a nerd taking his books home for the rest of the weekend to study?" he asked looking in the general direction of them.

"Haha, very funny Holmes. Just because you act all bad and rip up your test papers don't mean that you're one of us."

Sherlock laughed, shaking his head as he hitched his bag over his shoulder, "Please. Don't bring me to your standard of IQ. I'm way better than you. Or any of you for that matter," he said staring pointedly at them now.

"Oh yeah? You want to fight now?" the leader asked grasping the front of his shirt.

"I don't think you can handle it. After what happened to you last night with you and your girlfriend," he paused taking a whiff of the lingering female perfume on the bully's shirt, a shirt that he had used for two days in a row and had sat down to spaghetti for dinner with, "Camilla. She sure gave you a beating for trying to get in bed with her sister."

The bully dropped him as if he'd been burnt and stumbled back, "You freak! How dare you spy on people! You're a fucking creep Holmes!"

Sherlock eyed the rest of the gang, "Who's next?" he asked, watching as they all backed away now. It always worked. Deducing them, uncovering their dirty little secrets and exposing them for what they were a worthless bunch of trash. University wasn't any better. He didn't have any friends here. They all hated him as usual for prying into their lives. He couldn't help it. He'd honed his skills over the years that he'd spent waiting for that…

He turned, walking away in the direction opposite of the other students. Most were headed towards the school field to watch the school team play. They were all in pairs or groups, they all had friends. But not him. He didn't need any friends anyway. He didn't want friends.

By the time Sherlock got back home it was way past dinner time. Although his parents were never around now, he still hated going back to that stupid house at the end of the street. Because there was Mycroft. He walked up to the front door, his eyes wandering to the space in the garden where he'd seen some really impossible things before.

As he entered the house he saw the kitchen light on. That meant Mycroft was still up.

"Sherlock. Kitchen. Now."

He rolled his eyes and made his way to the kitchen. Mycroft sat at the dining table. The same dining table that filled him with happiness at one singular point in time.

"What?"

"Do you think that this is funny?" Mycroft asked.

Oh. So the teacher had called up his house just a few hours after the paper and told his brother about the tearing up of the blank test paper.

"Am I laughing?" Sherlock retorted.

His brother heaved a sigh and set his hands in a steeple. It seemed to have become a habit ever since Mycroft had started working with the government.

"When are you going to stop?" Mycroft asked, his voice was tired, weary. They'd gone through this many a time before, "You can't keep doing things like this at your age. There is no Doctor who will whisk you away in his time and dimension space thing."

Sherlock kept silent. It hurt. It always hurt when Mycroft brought him up. The Doctor.

"It's Time and Relative Dimension in Space," Sherlock corrected his brother.

Mycroft growled, "I don't care what it is! It's got to stop! There is no Doctor. There is no one! He didn't come back! So what ever you saw was a god damn imagination Sherlock!" he paused taking a breather, "You need to start focusing on your exams! You have to think of what you're going to do after you finish university and you can't do that if you keep tearing your papers up!"

"I don't need class tests. I still pass the real tests with flying colours even if I don't do the class tests," Sherlock said, "They are redundant pieces of paper that add up to us not saving the environment. Besides, I'm the one taking the test at the end of the year, not you so buzz off," he said turning on his heel. He refused to make any comment about the Doctor but clearly his brother was intent on bringing it up.

"Tell me one thing Sherlock, have you stopped waiting for that man in the blue box?"

Sherlock paused, his hand gripping tight to the doorframe. He knew the answer.

"You see. That's the problem. Plain as day. You still think he's going to come back. I know you were lonely back then and had no one so you created your own friend and named him and gave him a personality. But don't bring your imaginary friend into reality!"

"The Doctor was real," Sherlock said and left the dining room.

He headed back to his own room now at the end of the hallway and slammed his door shut. Dumping his bag down on the bed he went to take a shower. Once he was done, he turned off the bathroom light and fell into bed. Sherlock leaned over to turn on the bedside lamp, soft light bathed his small room and the little blue box that stood next to the lamp.

He took the blue box and looking at it he tossed it up into the air watching as it flew up then fell back towards him. He reached his hands out and catching it again threw it up into the air. There were times that Sherlock wanted to smash the box to pieces. He'd created the replica a week after the Doctor's departure and up until now, he kept it as a reminder that he had once met that strange man in the blue box.

Over the years he'd come up with an explanation, or something that he kept telling himself just to take away the

pain. Maybe something had happened? He still didn't think that was possible, so maybe time worked different in the Doctor's world. Like, what if five minutes there meant fifty years here or something? If there were one thing that he deducing skills couldn't wrap around it would be the Doctor.

The Doctor was the mystery that would remain unsolved to him.

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**AN: Hey guys so here's another chapter of the crossover story that i'm writing. I do hope that you guys enjoyed this chapter, i'll try to get the next chapter up as soon as possible! Do leave me a comment to let me know what you thought, I really appreciate it!**


	3. Too Late

Chapter 3: Too Late

"Please let this be the right one. Please," the Doctor whispered as he tried again. It was way past his given five minutes and he knew it but the TARDIS was in one of her crazy moods again and just couldn't seem to land in the right place. When she finally landed the Doctor stood before the doors, crossing his fingers he pushed open the door.

He smiled as he took in the scene of the familiar garden. He made it!

The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS, looking around the area. There was something that didn't seem quite right about the place. It was too quiet and it was morning. He looked towards the house now and found that it was all boarded up.

"Sherlock!" he called as he ran up to the front door, knocking on it repeatedly. "Sherlock…" he trailed of as the door creaked back open. He walked inside. It was bare. There was nothing in the house. Nothing at all. Where there had been furniture before, there stood nothing. The rooms were all empty and from the looks of it no one had lived in it for years. The Doctor moved to where the kitchen had been, the kitchen that he'd been in. The table that he'd sat at with Sherlock along with everything else in the kitchen was gone.

"I'm too late…" he murmured, his heart sinking. He walked back out to the front door and looked up the stairs, contemplating on whether he should go up. It always ended up like this, every companion leaving and moving on. This time was just the same just that Sherlock wasn't his companion and he'd made the promise to the boy to see him in five minutes.

The Doctor took the stairs up to the second floor and walked towards the room at the end of the hallway. He tried the handle and the door opened. The inside was just as empty as the rest of the house was. He stood at the window where the desk had been previously. The desk with Sherlock's homework, he thought as he smiled to himself a little sadly. Outside he could see the TARDIS from where she was out on the garden. He wondered what had happened to Sherlock.

Just as he was leaving the room, he saw a note tacked to the wall. He pulled out the little blue tack, the metal rusted and the page of the note yellowed and crisp. On it was spidery handwriting and he read:

_To The Doctor,_

_This is so stupid. I'm starting to think that maybe I might have dreamt you up at age eleven. I ended up waiting for more than the five minutes that you promised. You never came back. I kept waiting but you never came back. If you are real and if you ever do get to read this, I want you to know that for that short time that I knew, I had hoped that you would take me away. I wanted to go away with you so badly just to escape my life._

_I guess…humans don't really mean much right? It must be wonderful to fly around through time and space. If you can…don't ever crash land in another child's garden, it would cause them so much pain and ridicule. I've tried looking for you but I just can't seem to find you…I've shifted house by the way and just so you know I'm already twenty two. _

_-S.H._

He folded the note and dropped it into the pocket of his new coat he was eleven years too late. It couldn't be helped. This was how things went and to top it off even if he wanted to go back in time he couldn't because he was a part of that timeline and going back would only create big problems. He could try to track down Sherlock…but he was sure the man wouldn't want that.

Instead he decided to leave.

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_-9 years later- _

"There down on the bed now Sherlock," John murmured laying the detective down into his bed after which he sat down beside Sherlock heaving a sigh. It wasn't everyday that you lugged an immobilized man back home. Whatever it was that Irene had done had Sherlock out cold. Come to think of it, this was the first time that John was in Sherlock's room. He looked around. It was neat too neat compared to the mess that greeted you in the living room.

Even the bedside tables were near bare save for the lamps and a figurine of a police box. He didn't know that Sherlock liked collecting figurines. He smiled then shook his head as he left the room. There was so little that he knew about his friend. So little that it at times almost seemed that he didn't know him at all.

"…real…the Doctor is real…the Doctor and his blue police box…they're real," he heard the slurred words coming from Sherlock and he paused, looking to the blue police box again…

It had to be a coincidence that Sherlock talked about the figurine he owned right? John decided to take it as nothing more but sleep talk or the drugs that Irene had given. But it wasn't the first time that he'd heard Sherlock say these things about the Doctor. He wondered just who that might be. Maybe he could ask Sherlock when he woke up.

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**AN: Hey guys so here's the next chapter sorry i haven't really been uploading. I've been on the fence as to whether i should continue this story or not. But in the end i wrote till here. So leave me a comment to let me know what you think and maybe give me some ideas? Thanks guys! ILY! Ciao**


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